Chương 6
Maya stopped reading.
Richard had seen the line.
His expression told her he had probably seen it hundreds of times.
“What trouble?”
He stood.
“Maya.”
“What trouble are you in?”
“None.”
Evan’s laugh returned, smaller now.
“Fantastic answer.”
“I’m not in trouble.”
“Then why sell?”
Richard reached for the checkbook in the lockbox.
He opened it, then seemed to reconsider and closed it.
Maya took it from him.
The account was not his ordinary checking account.
The balance written on the last register line was $73,440.
She looked at the deposit above it.
$75,000.
“Earnest money?”
Richard nodded.
“Where’s the rest?”
“I paid some bills.”
Eleanor sat down hard on a storage bin.
“You spent it.”
“It was nonrefundable.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“I used eighteen hundred.”
Maya checked the register.
A payment to Hartwell Medical.
Another to Visa.
Another to something abbreviated BHS TAX.
Evan stepped beside her.
“What’s BHS?”
Nobody answered.
Then Evan saw it.
“Bennett Home Supply.”
Richard’s old business had been closed for more than a decade.
Maya felt the evening rearrange itself around that entry.
“You still owe money on the store?”
“Not the store.”
“What, then?”
Richard stared at the concrete floor.
“Payroll taxes.”
Eleanor whispered his name.
“I had a payment arrangement.”
“Had?”
“I missed payments.”
“How many?”
“Enough.”
Maya shut the checkbook.
“Why?”
Richard’s shoulders lifted and dropped.
The answer, when it came, was almost embarrassingly ordinary.
“Because I’m running out of money.”
Nobody spoke.
He went on before anyone could interrupt.
“The mortgage reset two years ago.”
“I thought the house was almost paid off.”
“It would have been.”
Maya heard the past tense.
“You refinanced it again.”
“My half.”
“You can’t refinance half a house.”
“No.”
His mouth twisted.
“That turned out to be one of several problems.”
Evan walked away from the workbench and kicked lightly at a cardboard box.
It slid six inches.
He kicked it back into place.
“Are we losing the house?”
Richard looked at him.
“Not if the sale goes through.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
Richard did not answer.
Maya’s phone felt suddenly heavy in her hand.
She opened Caleb’s voicemail details and pressed call.
Richard stood.
“May, it’s ten o’clock.”
“Then he won’t answer.”
“Maya.”
She put the phone to her ear.
It rang twice.
A man said, “Hello?”
Everyone in the basement went still.
Maya turned away from them.
“Caleb?”
“Yes.”
“This is Maya Bennett.”
There was a short pause.
“Thank God.”
She closed her eyes.
“That’s not an especially comforting response.”
“No, I’m sorry.”
Paper rustled on his end.
“I’ve been trying to reach you for four days.”
“My father had my phone.”
Richard said, “I did not.”
Maya covered the microphone.
“You deleted the first voicemail.”
His face changed.
She had guessed.
That was worse.
Evan stared at him.
“Dad.”
Richard looked away.
Maya uncovered the phone.
“Caleb, I need you to tell me exactly what happened.”
“I can tell you what I know.”
“Start with the sale.”
“The buyer sent me a title inquiry because my name appears in a recorded memorandum of trust.”
“Why would they contact you after signing?”
“They shouldn’t have.”
His voice hardened slightly.
“They should have done it before.”
Maya heard keys tapping.
“The purchase agreement was signed by your father individually and by Harlan Pike claiming to act as trustee for Caroline Bennett’s trust.”
Eleanor stood.
“He what?”
Caleb heard her.
“Who’s there?”
“My grandmother.”
“Eleanor?”
She stepped closer to the phone.
“Yes.”
Caleb exhaled.
“That helps.”
Richard looked sick.
Maya said, “Why?”
“Because she’s the trust protector.”
Maya turned toward her grandmother.
Eleanor did not look surprised.
That hurt almost as much as Richard’s silence.
“You knew.”
“I knew what Caroline asked me to do.”
“And apparently everybody decided my life was a group project I wasn’t invited to.”
“Maya—”
“No.”
Caleb said quietly, “There’s something else.”
She gripped the edge of the workbench.
“Of course there is.”
“The buyer wired seventy-five thousand dollars when the agreement was signed.”
“We found it.”
“Found what?”
“The money.”
Caleb went silent.
Then his voice lost its careful professional tone.
“Maya, that money was not supposed to go to Richard.”
She looked at the checkbook.
“Where was it supposed to go?”
“To the escrow account.”
Richard sat down again.
Caleb continued.
“I called Northline this afternoon.”
Maya watched her father’s hands clasp between his knees.
“They say they wired it to an account using instructions sent from Harlan Pike’s office.”
Eleanor’s face went pale.
Caleb said, “I spoke to Harlan too.”
Richard looked up.
Maya barely breathed.
“And?”
“He says he never sent those instructions.”
Maya looked at Richard.
“Whose account is this?”
Richard’s answer came too quickly.
“Mine.”
Caleb said, “What kind of account?”
Maya opened the checkbook again and read the printed line above the register.
“Bennett Household Reserve.”
Caleb was silent for half a second.
“Which bank?”
She told him.
Keys clicked on his end.
“Richard, did you give Northline wiring instructions for that account?”
Richard stood so abruptly his shoulder hit the underside of the stairs.
“No.”
Evan folded his arms.
“You’re going to need a better version of no.”
“I didn’t send anybody wiring instructions.”
“But you knew the money arrived.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Richard opened his mouth and stopped.
Maya felt the answer before he gave it.
“Harlan told you.”
Richard nodded.
“When?”
“The morning after it came in.”
Caleb’s voice sharpened.
“And you didn’t question why seventy-five thousand dollars from a real estate transaction landed in your personal account?”
“It isn’t my personal account.”
Eleanor stared at him.
“Richard.”
“It’s an account I use for house expenses.”
“That makes it personal.”
“Harlan said Northline released the deposit directly because I was the seller.”
Caleb said, “That is not what the contract says.”
Richard looked toward the phone as if Caleb were physically standing there.
“I didn’t draft the contract.”
“No, but you signed it.”
May you like
“I signed what Harlan gave me.”
Maya rubbed her thumb over the checkbook’s vinyl edge.
